


"I Summon John"

by Ludella



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Fix-It, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Reincarnation, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 22:31:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11838324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ludella/pseuds/Ludella
Summary: Merle isn't ready to accept that John may be gone.He continues trying to call for him through the bond machine, broken down and out of order for years now.





	"I Summon John"

**Author's Note:**

> i have drafts and outlines for a million different fix-it fics saved im not letting my boy john go down like this

The bond machine does not react.

Merle sighs--he can’t say he didn’t expect it.

If it hadn’t worked fifty years ago, why would it work now?

 

He sits down at the base of the reactor and simply waits, allowing his thoughts to wash over him in waves. It’s been a while. It’s been a long time since the Day of Story and Song, since their final stand, and since the disappearance of his oddest and most valuable friendship.

He’s been coming to the Starblaster ever since, where it now sits as an almost sacred monument, and tries to will fate to give him one final chance.

Magnus passed away a few years ago. Everyone threw themselves into their work in his honor. With a smile, Taako promised to see Merle later before taking off with his own family for some other grand event. Merle isn’t lonely, not with his children growing so rapidly now and still surrounded by his many friends and chosen family. But Magnus’s death signals a shift in all of them.

They won’t all be here forever.

Taako, Barry and Lup, with their newfound connections? They might have longer. Lucretia doesn’t have much time left in her, and Davenport is growing older just the same.

Merle isn’t the oldest dwarf alive, but he isn’t the youngest. And there’s still so much left for him to do and to finish.

No one knows what happened to those consumed by the Hunger once it was finally defeated. Optimistically, Davenport suggested they were all reformed and continued to survive somewhere out there in the vastness of existence. John, especially, who during his last conscious moments chose to be with Merle--twice, before and after their battle, smiled at him.

Merle refuses to leave it at that.

What were once weekly visits to the Starblaster became monthly, until he can only come by once a year to pray to his god to help him with this one last thing, this one last request. It never comes, naturally, and he can’t really blame Pan for it; John may be in a world with a completely different Pan. Or no world at all.

The man’s smile haunts him ever to this day, and he lives out the final sunset in his dreams more times than he can count. John is never there, but the scene remains the same, and when the sun finally sinks below the horizon Merle wakes to an empty room.

After fifty years, he hasn’t forgotten his face, and prays the memory will last through his old age.

An hour passes and Merle heaves another tired sigh. Even though he knows it’s futile, he continues to try for the sake of trying, for the sake of a friend he can’t leave behind, for the sake of a man who, after thousands of years of disinterest and hatred for existence, finally decided he wanted to live.

“I summon John,” he says again, leaning his head back against the reactor.

It creaks pathetically against his weight.

Some nights, he dreams of what it would’ve been like if things had ended differently. If they had saved John.

It would take a while for the man to get used to being alive, being human again, but Merle would help him. Even if he was the only person in the world who trusted John enough to not ruin the world again, Merle would be by his side. He’d take him wherever had to, to help him heal, to relearn how to live, to be happy again.

John wouldn’t be responsive for most of the first bit, but after a little while, Merle likes to think he would change. He would slowly begin to smile more. He would return to playing chess with Merle, and they would trade back biting comments and snarky lines until they were both laughing like fools. Merle would listen intently to every story and tale John had from his life, stories he never told anybody because he hadn’t ever _had_ anybody until now, and John would be happy just to tell them. Merle would be happy just to hear.

They would live together, and they would grow together, and they would _survive_ together, god, how Merle wanted for John to be able to live again. Was fate so cruel, that it couldn’t forgive one human man who wanted to change? If Lup and Barry were given passes by the goddess of the underworld, could that same man who met them between planes on the train not give a singular redo?

It’s unfair.

Merle can believe and trust in Pan with all of his heart, but the laws of the world, the necessities of existence, can all fuck themselves.

The moment he begins to stand, another sound echoes through the empty husk of the Starblaster. It isn’t from the bond machine, though, and Merle looks up just as a movement passes by the dock of the ship.

“Hey,” a voice calls, and he can just make out a figure approaching. “You can’t be here, this is a memorial.”

Merle prepares his excuses.

And then he stops.

And then he smiles.

As soon as he can tell that Merle recognizes him, John lowers the act and smiles back at him.

“What took you so long, buddy?”

Merle reaches out for him once they’re close enough, and John takes the dwarves’ hands in his own. Odd, how his appearance is the same as it’s always been in every memory, and yet he looks… different. He’s alive, he’s living, and god, he’s lived.

John squeezes his hands. “I had to go be born, again.”

His crisp suit had been exchanged for formal wear of their own world, similar enough to match his aesthetic, and Merle can’t contain the laugh that bubbles up from his throat. “Born? I’ve been waitin’ here for you this entire time and you were just-- _alive_ out there? Out _here_?”

“You summoned me.”

As if on cue, they sit down together, still holding their hands, and still facing each other. Merle hums as his fingers run over the backs of John’s knuckles, feeling his real, physical skin. It’s the first time he’s touched his hands without them being covered in fire. They’re… rough from wear, but hold Merle’s gently, so goddamn _gentle_ that Merle can hardly believe it’s him.

“I did,” Merle says, “but I didn’t think it worked. You should’ve given me notice, should’ve--come seen me sooner, John!”

“As a child?”

Merle lets out a loud bark of laughter. “Good point.”

John chuckles as well, focusing back on the hands in his own as if they’re keeping him grounded. They probably are. “I had to… wait until the time was right. Until you could recognize me, for one thing, and until I… had finally lived. I wanted to return to you as a man who can admit he’s wrong and apologize. So I lived, contentedly, in a world you’ve helped protect.” When John finally lifts his eyes to meet Merle’s, his gaze is soft, the same as he’d been on that sunset. But now, there’s no resignation, and no somber acceptance.

He’s happy.

“Thank you, Merle.”

Tears were already pricking at the back of his eyes, and Merle nods for lack of a better response.

John is alive.

He’s been alive, living here, in the world Merle is so proud of inhabiting. A world they all protected together and is the living proof of the power of people’s bonds and love. It just goes to show how strong their bonds had been to create an environment where even the Hunger could thrive happily, born anew.

John turns Merle’s hand over, lifting it to his face so he can press a kiss into his palm. He holds it to his cheek, and the smile John wears allows Merle to finally believe that all the waiting had been worth it.

Merle squeezes his other hand and uses it as leverage to pull him down until their mouths meet, barely able to kiss properly with their lips stretched up in smiles. John laughs into his mouth and Merle drinks it in heartily, pressing kisses to his cheeks instead when it’s proven they’re too clumsy to even make out sappily.

He returns to the thoughts locked away of ‘what may have been.’

They would live together, they would grow together, and they would survive together.

On the broken down dock of the Starblaster, Merle and John are wrapped together in a bright thread, a bond that had threatened to be cut so many times and only ever came back stronger.

There’s a lot of work to do.

There’s a lot they have to talk about.

Thankfully, this time, they don’t have to wait a year between meetings--Merle would sooner cuff them together for eternity than lose him again. And from John’s tight grip on his wrist, he has reason to believe the feeling is mutual.

Outside the ship, the setting sun sinks below the horizon.

But this time, John is still in his arms when the light fades away.


End file.
